Create online charisma to pull in smart ideas and stir up new business. How:

 Brass should tweet. "The No. 1 branding question today is not, 'What is your brand?' but 'Who is your brand?'" said Martin, author of "Renegades Write the Rules: How the Digital Royalty Use Social Media to Innovate."

You'll draw ace collaborators and get a better handle on innovation if you present fans with a responsive human being.

Younger staffers might know how to link to photos or find cool sites. Instead of giving them the keys to the account, though, let them train the chiefs. Then encourage leaders to do the online talking.

 Loosen up. "NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell ... had people on his staff tweeting for him," Martin said. "There was little if any connection with his followers, who stuck around largely in hopes of getting a scrap of information from his poker-faced tweets."

 It's not email. You don't have to read every tweet, Martin teaches.

A better take: See it as walking into a coffee shop and adding to the chatter.

"It's jumping in and out of the conversation," Martin said. "A lot of executives feel responsible and obligated to respond to everyone. There comes a point when that won't be possible."

 Listen. "People will talk about you, your industry, your products and services," said Eve Mayer Orsburn, author of "Social Media for the CEO." "The only way to stay relevant to the conversation — and potentially influence it — is to show up and hear what everybody is already saying."

 Follow opposites. If you let your online automatic pilot do the steering, you'll probably be drawn to people who think like you and sites that appeal to people like you.

Shake it up, Orsburn advises.

"Social media is an effective way to reach the world," she said. "To do that, you have to get in front of people who don't know you."

 Reveal strategically. You get to pick and choose the kind of information you put out on social media, Martin says.

She's never told her 1.2 million followers if she's married. But she lets them in on the things she finds funny and tells stories about her life.

"Talk about your hobbies," she said. "Post behind-the-scenes photos."

 Grow easy. The most pressing social media question for many executives: How can we make money off these sites?

"One of the examples that we give is to think of yourself at a cocktail party or networking event and you are meeting a lot of individuals in your industry," she said. "You wouldn't want to go up and ask them to buy into a time share right away."